


Message in a bottle

by SharpestRose



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman (Millerverse)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-17
Updated: 2011-07-17
Packaged: 2017-10-21 12:23:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/225135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharpestRose/pseuds/SharpestRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You can ignore this if you like. Make something better up."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Message in a bottle

Dear Sir/Madam;

I'm sorry to start this so formally, but I'm not sure there's any other option. Thank you for adopting my child. I hope you love her very much. I don't know why, but I'm almost certain it is a her. Whether that's the truth or not, thank you.

I don't want to write to her directly, though you can give her this letter on her sixteenth birthday if you think that's appropriate. That's how old I am now, and it feels very strange to think that the bump in my belly will ever be a person just like me. You don't have to give it to her if you don't want to. You can ignore this if you like. Make something better up.

My name is Lorena Hearst, but everybody's always called me Rena. I was named after a grandmother who wasn't very well liked by the rest of the family, so I figure they shortened my name so I wouldn't inherit the baggage that came with being called that. I have brown hair, grey eyes, and wide palms. The baby's father had blond hair, blue eyes, and long legs. Maybe you'll want to look and see if the baby has any of those things too, that's why I'm mentioning them. I'm okay at school. I think I'd like to be a marine biologist one day, but my Dad says that all the girls who don't want to be flight attendants say that.

I don't want you to think that I'm some nice kid who got a bad break, or anything like that. If things hadn't gone horrible, I would've had an abortion.

Bet you don't feel sorry for me now. I bet you've put the letter back in the envelope, or you're burning it. No way you're going to let the baby read it when she grows up.

Sometimes I imagine how it should've gone, when I feel sick or ugly and the baby starts kicking me. I'd have had a termination, and the baby's father would've found out, and we'd have ended up breaking up after that. I'd be thinking about normal stuff, and using this paper to write to penfriends.

Your daughter's father was named Jason. We met at school, because we were the two newest kids in the class. He was nice, if a bit googly-moogly. I never got before what my Mom meant when she'd say that her sister Sally was in love with the idea of love, but that was what Jase could be like sometimes. I felt like he loved me because he had to love somebody, and I happened to be nearby.

It was hard not to love him back, at least a little bit. He was persistent.

It was all a total cliche: boy meets girl, boy and girl start going out, stuff happens, the test turns pink.

The difference with us was that by the time I took a test, Jason was dead.

He got killed by the Joker. I hope to God that the Joker's dead by the time you're reading this. Sometimes I think that maybe, once the baby's born, I'm going to get one of my Dad's guns and go up to Arkham with it. Someone needs to stop him.

The paper even mentioned the killing, which is how I knew it must have been really bad. The Joker kills so many people that most of them barely get to be a name on a list in the middle of an article, but Jason got two whole paragraphs about how it was so tragic that someone so young had been brutally slain by a madman.

When I can't sleep, it's because I'm thinking about that. I don't want to, but the second I shut my eyes I start imagining how it must have been for him before it was over. I know it doesn't do any good to wonder, but I can't stop. I don't sleep very much. I hope it isn't hurting the baby. I hope the baby can sleep well.

A few weeks after, I found out that I was pregnant. I couldn't get rid of it. Same as how I didn't give his soccer shirt back to Mr Wayne when I found that it'd ended up in my laundry, I guess. It was a little part of Jase that I still had, even though the rest of him was gone.

I gave Mr Wayne the rest of the stuff of Jason's I had. A camera with half a role of film still in it. I could have had the pictures developed, but I didn't want to. It's like that experiment with the cat in the box, where until the box is opened nobody knows if the cat's alive or dead. Until the pictures were printed, the moment wasn't really set down. It wasn't passed yet. I couldn't do it. I don't know if Mr Wayne could.

I think Jason loved him the same way he loved me. We never talked about it, but I can't imagine Jason having any other way of loving someone apart from with his whole entire soul. I'll lie to get people to like me, or do dumb things, but Jason just laid himself open and offered it up. I stole that line from one of my Mom's romance novels. It was talking about the girl character, and I think it was phrased like that because it was one of those books where all the smutty bits are metaphors. But it wasn't a metaphor with Jason.

By the time I went to see Mr Wayne, I was starting to show a little. He asked if I wanted money. I said yeah. He never asked if the baby was Jason's. I don't know if that means he assumed it was, or if it didn't matter either way.

The other stuff I gave back to Mr Wayne was all junky: a necklace with a fanged tooth on it, a couple of half-filled school notebooks, a magazine Jase had bought for me. It had a picture of Robin in it. Jason didn't like that I had a crush on another guy, but I guess the fact that it was a superhero made it easier for him to put up with it. Some girls like rock stars.

I'm saying all this because I want my daughter -- your daughter, now -- to know that she might have been an accident, but she was kept and carried with love. All I could give Jase, by the time I knew, was to keep it. He would have loved you so much, little girl. I can feel you kicking, and I know that. He would have loved you to the end of the world. It's who he was.

I guess I do hope that you end up reading this for yourself one day. I don't think we're ever going to meet. I feel like there's another thing growing inside me, along with you. It's the thing that makes me want to borrow my Dad's guns and find the Joker. I don't think it's going to stop, and I know that some kinds of heroes don't live all that long. Even Robin hasn't been seen for a while.

I hope you don't hate me. I hope you have a name that's yours, and not just one you got handed down to you from someone else. I've always kind of liked the name Caroline, but it's not really up to me.

Whoever you are, know that you're loved.

Yours sincerely,

Rena


End file.
